Murder at the PTA. Lee Hollis

      CHAPTER ONE

      Sandra Wallage stood behind the podium on top of a wooden box so her five-foot-three frame could be seen above the microphone into which she was about to speak to the auditorium full of parents. This was her first major address since being elected as president of the parent-teacher association. She had been working on her speech all week, crossing out paragraphs, rewriting whole chunks, obsessing over every word that she planned to utter in order to avoid any unnecessary conflict or controversy, which wasn’t easy when it came to the South Portland High School PTA.

      There was also her innate fear of public speaking that took hold way back in high school, when she was named valedictorian of her class and was tasked with speaking on behalf of the entire student body. She opened her mouth to start her speech and burped.

      Loudly.

      Right into the microphone.

      Damn that plate of nachos she had devoured with her girlfriends, in their caps and gowns, an hour earlier at the Mexican restaurant down the street from their school.

      Everyone in the audience burst into uproarious laughter. Students, teachers, parents, everyone. It was her most humiliating moment up to that point in her young adolescent life. After they had all managed to calm down, Sandra was able to mutter her way through her speech, ignoring the titters from her fellow students, and, yes, even a few insensitive adults, and then as she stepped down off the stage, she vowed then and there that she would never put her fragile self-esteem at risk like that ever again.

      But now, all these years later, public speaking should have been second nature to her. She was the wife of a United States senator representing the great state of Maine. She had attended hundreds of luncheons and fund-raisers where she was almost always expected to say at least a few words. But she found that it never got any easier for her. She had tried every trick in the book, even picturing the whole audience in their underwear to calm her nerves and make the ordeal a little bit easier, as her son once casually suggested. But that never really worked either. Nothing ever worked. She felt nauseous every time she was asked to step in front of a microphone.

      And yet here she was, one more time, standing in front of two hundred people, all ready to hang on her every word, and all she could think about was the run in her stocking. She had noticed it right before the school principal, the dashing John Hicks, had introduced her. She couldn’t help but glance down at it now, the small almost imperceptible imperfection. She always worked so hard to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect PTA president, and for the most part, she certainly looked the part. Her freshly pressed designer white skirt suit from Nordstrom, her elegant matching Salvatore Ferragamo bow pump shoes, her impeccable coiffured blond hair, everything, all of it was working.

      Except for that ignoble, irritating run in her stocking.

      Sandra took a deep breath.

      Just because you always expect to be perfect doesn’t mean everybody else does.

      She smiled out at the audience.

      You can do this.

      “Good afternoon. Thank you, Principal Hicks, for that warm and gracious introduction. Parents, teachers, students, welcome to our first PTA meeting of the fall semester at South Portland High School!”

      The applause gave her the opportunity to glance down at the stack of index cards she was holding in her hands.

      There was a lot to cover.

      Parent involvement.

      Budget approval.

      Fund-raising ideas.

      She then commenced to plow through them all, covering every topic on her agenda, telling herself to slow down as she raced to get through to the end.

      She stumbled a couple of times, tripping over a word here, a word there, looking up, red-faced, only to be met with friendly, understanding smiles. That relaxed her a bit. Then, down went her head again, eyes fixed on her index cards until she was holding the last one in her hand.

      “So in conclusion, let’s all work together to make this year at SoPo High the best one yet!”

      The auditorium erupted in applause.

      That was it.

      She was almost done.

      Just a five-minute question and answer session and then she would be home free.

      The first question was an easy one about the new football uniforms.

      “I’m happy to report the uniforms have been ordered and will arrive before the homecoming game in October,” Sandra reported, smiling.

      Next, a breathlessly excited mother shot her hand up in the air with an inquiry about the fall musical. “I heard they might do Hello, Dolly! Is that true? I love that musical, and although I’m biased, I think my daughter, Jana, would be the perfect Dolly Levi!”

      Sandra caught a few eye rolls from the other parents.

      She had to suppress a smile.

      “I’m not sure our director, the ridiculously talented Georgina Callis, has selected which musical the theater department will be staging this fall, but please keep checking the school’s web page for updates.”

      Sandra resisted the urge to check her watch.

      She was eager to get out of there but didn’t want to let on that she was in too much of a rush to wrap things up. She wanted to give the parents all the time they needed.

      A father stood and asked if there was going to be a spring trip to Paris for the French class after what happened last year with the temporary detainment of one student for attempting to draw a mustache on Mona Lisa at the Louvre with a magic marker.

      “That was an isolated incident, so I see no reason why this year’s class should be punished. . . .”

      Suddenly Sandra heard a bunch of cell phone alerts ringing from all over the auditorium. She hadn’t seen this many phones going off since she and her husband were at their son’s Little League game way back in 2010 when word went out all over the world that a SEAL team had nailed Bin Laden. Whatever the news was, it sounded awfully important.

      There was a lot of urgent whispering